U.S. is Willing to Help and Assist
India / Investigative Team on the Ground in
Mumbai

DEPARTMENT

Meetings by Deputy
Secretary Negroponte and Under Secretary Burns at State
Department / Issues Discussed

Secretary Rice Has Tried to
Increase Number of Positions in Foreign Service

More
Funding Needed for the Foreign
Service

THAILAND

International and Domestic
Airports will Open December 5th / Discussions Going on the
Issue of Chartering Aircraft

TRANSCRIPT:

View Video

10:37 a.m. EST

MR. WOOD: Good
morning, everyone.

QUESTION: Good morning.

MR.
WOOD: Let me just give you an update on some of the
diplomacy going on with regard to India. I think most of you
know Deputy Secretary Negroponte and Under Secretary for
Political Affairs Bill Burns met with the Indian Foreign
Secretary Shivshankar yesterday. Secretary Rice, as you
know, is in New Delhi today. She met with the Minister of
Home Affairs Chidambaram. She also met with Minister of
Foreign Affairs Mukherjee. Later today, she’s scheduled to
meet with Prime Minister Singh, and she also met earlier
today with LK Advani from the BJP party.

So that’s
what’s going on. I’ll take your
questions.

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. WOOD:
Charlie.

QUESTION: There are a lot of reports
coming out of Islamabad that the Secretary is expected
there. Do you have anything --

MR. WOOD: We don’t
have any update with regard to the Secretary’s travel
plans. But if there is an update, we’ll let you
know.

Sir.

QUESTION: There’s a report coming
out that the U.S. military wants to hold on to about 5,000
detainees beyond the SOFA agreement. Have you heard anything
about this and do you have a comment about this?

MR.
WOOD: No, I haven’t heard anything like that. Probably
refer you to the Pentagon for a comment on
that.

Charley.

QUESTION: Just back to India.
There was a report that an unexploded bomb had been found in
the Mumbai train station. I just wondered whether you had
any comment on that or if that’s going to lead to any new
travel advisories, warnings, et cetera?

MR. WOOD:
No. I heard about the report. Based on what I heard, it may
have been a bomb that was previously laid by the terrorists,
but again, I don’t have any of the facts on that. We’re
obviously going to try to find out what we can.

Anything
else?

QUESTION: Can you tell us anything more about
those meetings here at the State Department yesterday with
Under Secretary – with Deputy Secretary Negroponte and
Under Secretary Burns?

MR. WOOD: Well, they clearly
talked about the issue of the Mumbai attacks and the
aftermath and the type of cooperation that we all need to
give to finding out who was responsible, and talked a bit
about the Secretary’s trip to India and what she hoped to
accomplish and, of course, about our efforts to – in our
discussions with Pakistan to get the government there to do
all it can to help with the investigation. So that was the
essence of the conversation.

QUESTION: Can you tell
us anything more about what sort of briefings the State
Department has done for the Obama transition group about
this particular issue? I know that in the early days the
Secretary had briefed President-elect Obama a couple of
times. Has there been any more of that?

MR. WOOD:
As far as I know, there hasn’t been, but I can’t
certainly rule that out. There may have been conversations
between individuals of the Administration and
President-elect Obama’s team, but I’m not aware of
any.

Yes, Charlie.

QUESTION: Well, just back to
the first part of that question and the briefings or the
meetings here yesterday, did the Indian official ask for any
additional U.S. help? Did he ask for more – for access to
more intelligence information, ask for more FBI people,
fewer --

MR. WOOD: Well, I don’t want to really
get into the – more into the substance of the
conversations, but let me just say that we have said to the
Indians that we’re willing to help in any way we can.
We’re certainly – as you know, we have an investigative
team on the ground in Mumbai, trying to assist the Indians
with the investigation. And we’re certainly open to any
type of assistance the Indians may need. And so the
Secretary will be having discussions with her counterparts
and we’ll go from there.

Anything else?
Charley.

QUESTION: Today they’re releasing the
Academy of Diplomacy report that makes some pretty damning
statements about the condition of the Foreign Service. One
of the points was significant portions of the nation’s
foreign affairs business simply are not accomplished,
because of staffing difficulties and other measures. Do you
agree with this and to what extent does --

MR.
WOOD: Well, Charley, I haven’t seen the report. But as
you know, Secretary Rice has been trying to do everything
she can to increase the number of positions of the Foreign
Service, to increase the level of funding for the State
Department, and she continually works on that. You know, we
have to work with Congress. Congress provides our funding.
And it’s something that she will continue to work on
until, you know, she departs from the Department. But it is
a problem. We need more funding for the Foreign Service, for
the State Department, in general. But it’s something
she’s committed to trying to do.

QUESTION: I
think this report’s has been out for some months now. I
think they may be re-launching it today.

MR. WOOD:
Oh, re-launching. I haven’t seen it.

QUESTION:
Unless it’s a new one. I may be mistaken.

MR.
WOOD: No, I haven’t seen
it.

Dave.

QUESTION: Any comment on the conclusion
of the political crisis or apparent conclusion of it in
Thailand?

MR. WOOD: Nothing more to say than I did
yesterday. My understanding is that the two – the
international and domestic airports will open on the 5th.
And we’re still – there are discussions going on about
whether there’s a need to have a charter – bring in
charter aircraft to bring Americans back to the United
States, but nothing more beyond that.

Anything else? Okay.
Thank you all.

QUESTION: Sorry. Is there a Middle
East Quartet coming up soon?

MR. WOOD: I know there
have been discussions about whether that will happen or not.
We’ll let you know as soon as we have something
firm.

QUESTION: Okay.

QUESTION: Actually,
just one in relation to that.

MR. WOOD:
Sure.

QUESTION: Former British Prime Minister Tony
Blair is in town today. I wonder if you know of any meetings
that he has with any State Department --

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